Homosexuality: Representation In Societies Throughout History

Homosexuality is a contentious issue among many religious groups and cultures throughout the world and has been one the most volatile political topics in recent years. Although societal attitudes toward homoeroticism vary greatly across cultures and historical eras, as do attitudes toward erotic desire, activity and relationships that exhibit homosexuality overall. Homosexual behavior has been variously punished, suppressed, tolerated and approved of throughout history. With many of the world's cultures now consider homosexuality a normal, recognized form of sexual attraction. In ancient Greco-Roman times a prevalence of pederasty, “a socially acknowledged erotic relationship between an adult male and a younger male usually in his teens. Characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods,” (Nissinen 2004, p. 57) is critically acknowledged and is representative of ancient Greece as a culture that openly accepts gay relationships. Whilst within certain sects of religions including Judeo-Christian and those influenced by Abrahamic tradition, acts of homosexuality were and currently are censored. Whereas medieval Europe saw period of sexual persecution where one found guilty of homosexual acts could be punished via death and established a precedent for other forms of sexual suppression in the future, resulting in the lasting taboo nature of the topic today, elucidating the everchanging regard in which homosexuality is perceived in.

Although the characterization of sexual attraction, homosexuality, “sexual interest in and attraction to members of one’s own sex, with the term gay is frequently used as a synonym for homosexual and female homosexuality often referred to as lesbianism,” is generally used to describe a same sex relationship it is not applicable when referring to ancient Greece (Homosexuality 2019). In ancient Greek society during the Archaic period from 800 BCE-500 BCE (Ancient History Encyclopedia 2009) nature of homosexuality was common and viewed as not any more defamatory than heterosexual conduct, in fact with Greece’s unbounded sexuality and steady obscurity of normal sex jobs in the time period it fostered a sexually fluid climate wherein homosexuality, in particular pederasty, and was considered neither unnatural nor skeptical. Pederasty is an ancient Greek society was a form of interaction in which members of the same sex would partake in the pleasures of a sexual relationship as part of an acceptable social custom, (Hubbard 2003) with the ideal pederastic relationship consisting of an older male and younger boy who’s passed puberty typically of the age of 16 and no older than 18. (Dover 1978) Therefore the sexual fluidity of these ancient people is unable to fit inside the strict rigid definition and term ‘homosexuality’ coined within the late 19th century by German psychologist, Karoly Maria Benkert (Pickett 2018) long after the civilization perished. Rather the practice of pederasty and the Greeks version of homosexuality where they did not judge sexuality in those terms of a homosexual or heterosexual. Instead focusing of the act, itself, but now pederasty is considered repugnant to the degree it has been classified as illegal, specifically characterized as pedophilia. Evidently, the word homosexual does not encompass nor satisfy the nuances within the Greek lexicon to describe their attraction to a man that would now otherwise be found a criminal act.

The persecution and censorship of homosexual behavior facilitated via religious bodies throughout history has resulted in a lapse of gay literature during the middle ages and is a significant part of the history of homosexuality to note. Especially when discussing the manner in which homosexuality has been perceived in, during the active defemination of homosexuality in the past, until current times in order to evaluate the nature of its representation in literature. In the later stages of the Roman Empire when Christianity developed through Europe homosexual encounters and behaviors came to be considered as unacceptable, due to the religious concepts of holiness and purity advocated for by Christian authorities based on certain words in the bible. Christian sexuality’s main approach held an opposing view to homosexual actions. Sex was only intended during this medieval period for strictly procreation purposes. The literature of medieval authors did not understand sex as a mutual, shared experience by two or more people of any preferred sexual denomination or gender. Society viewed sex as an act one person performed on another, as such that only a man penetrating a women’s vagina with their penis was considered acceptable.

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The implications from this medieval thought about sex on homosexuals was grave and provided a precedent for the treatment of those who are gay and how literature portrays homosexual now. A man penetrating another male was a perversion of the ideal sex act as a mans role was to penetrate and be active, not passive and penetrated. This is demonstrated in the 12th century poem ‘The Plaint of Nature’ by Alain of Lille and reads, “The active sex shudders in disgrace as it sees itself degenerate into passive sex. A man turned woman blackens the fair name of sex.” The term sodomy, anal sex between two men, became outlawed by the Church in the 12th century. While certain jurisdictions in continental Europe elevated the punishment of male same sex relations particularly in France and Italy to an extreme level, that constituted the death penalty and cemented the anti-homosexuality sentiment in both religion and law.

The authors of this time were tainted in blind hate towards homosexual relationships, spurred on by societal delusions that were engraved into themselves from childhood and so no written work was achieved on the subject. To the extent that Bernadino of Siena, a prominent voice and author in his era, praised Venice for burning sodomites alive at the stake. In this period of time members of society and social customs contributed to the blatant blackout of homosexual literature ranging generally from the collapse of the Roman empire in 5th century, up until the early stages of the age of enlightenment. The forced suppression of the homosexual or homosexual act through means of harsh and exaggerated punishment by the government and through religious exploitation of the church and other religious bodies, including those associated with the Muslim faith to obtain their desired society in accordance with their own sacred guiding scriptures. Evidently this scourge of the homosexual occasioned a drastic lapse in any preserved literature that wasn’t confiscated or burned and contained accounts of homosexuality as a theme within the text. Rather the only literature from this period is confined to a few short quotes and poems, but nothing large enough to in depth understand how homosexuality was truly represented in literature as a consequence of the deliberate attempt to rid Europe of homosexuality. It was only until the 20th century when society began understanding and being accepting of homosexuality when novels and texts on the subject started to be written and published again.

This dissertation aims to critically analyze how homosexuality has been represented in societies throughout history, from ancient Greco-Roman times, to the 19th century and the counterculture sexual revolution of the 1960s where societal understanding of different sexual orientations became generally accepted, using literary texts from the corresponding time periods. In depth, I strive to understand in what manner literature is used to convey homosexuality in society and how that conforms and comments on the cultural zeitgeist. In addition, elucidate societal changes to the nature of homosexuality.